food + drink – Page 6 – Leslie LaskinReese Design

Farm City, Novella Carpenter

Farm City by Novella Carpenter

“I took a deep breath and plunged the little yellow seeds into the ground that was not mine. I snaked the hose around from our backyard and sprinkled water onto the bare patch of soil. Lana and I stood and watched the water soak in. What I was doing reminded me a little of shoplifting, except instead of taking, I was leaving something. But I was worried. Couldn’t these plants be used as evidence against me?”
~Novella Carpenter, Farm City

I know….Novella Carpenter wrote this book years ago. And I’m finally reading it now. With my ridiculously destroyed back garden (see my facebook page for the reason behind that!), I am ripe for a new start. On top of the mess, we are having a drought in California, so unless it feeds my family, I’m not watering it. Eventually the grass will die, which won’t break my heart. Then I will follow Novella’s lead and plant food which I will water very carefully so as not to waste a drop. Who knows where this will lead?

chilaquiles!

in food + drink, my sf

The Little Chihuahua in my new SF hood (nopa) is now serving brunch and they have chilaquiles on the menu! Steve and I cruised the neighborhood yesterday morning and found the Grove Street farmers market (complete with a little cooking exhibition!), about three hundred cafes serving breakfast, and every shade of neighbor. It was awesome. But we haven’t made it to The Little Chihuahua yet….next weekend.

The backstory: chilly killys. That’s what my coworker Shirley called the dish she was famous for. I was the new designer in the office and had no idea what to expect. The next morning Shirley arrived at the office with a giant pyrex filled with a blend of tortilla chips, cheese and eggs. It was good, but I was still not as impressed as my office mates. And I was still confused by the name.

photo courtesy El Huarache Loco facebook/John Ater

A few years after my first exposure I saw chilaquiles on a menu and finally understood the name, although I’m sure I still mispronounce it. It’s a ‘leftovers’ dish of fried corn tortilla chips, verde sauce (although some use a red sauce but I much prefer verde), Mexican cheese and crema, cilantro, onions, lime juice and over easy eggs. I’ve come to love this dish as much as those office mates of long ago, just not the casserole style that I was introduced to. I order it whenever it is on the menu and have found the absolute best rendition at El Huarache Loco in Marin Country Mart. Not only are these the best chilaquiles so far, but the story behind El Huarache Loco is pretty sweet too.

best chilaquiles EVER!
photo courtesy El Huarache Loco facebook page

can they match El Huarache Loco? photo courtesy The Little Chihuahua facebook page

can they match El Huarache Loco’s chilaquiles?
photo courtesy The Little Chihuahua facebook page

So next on my breakfast agenda is to hit The Little Chihuahua on Divis. Fingers crossed it’s as good as ELH….dang….so many days to pass before my next fix!

Please please please let me know if you have a spot with awesome chilaquiles….I’m always up for another go. Have a great week,
Leslie

a trabocco in Alameda

in art + architecture + design, food + drink

trabocco photos courtesy weisbachad.com/Paul Dyer unless noted otherwise

entry and dining patio
photos courtesy weisbachad.com/Paul Dyer unless noted otherwise

Giuseppe Naccarelli, the chef/operator at Trabocco Kitchen and Cocktails in Alameda, grew up in Abruzzo, Italy, a region bordered on the east by mountains and on the west by The Adriatic Sea. Naccarelli was raised in the kitchen and after moving to America spent nearly 20 years at Il Fornaio. With his first foray into restaurant ownership he hearkens back to the coastline of his childhood and the wooden fishing machines that dotted the shore. Working with my friend Lev Weisbach (and yes, I even helped a bit with the original space planning), the design team used these fishing machines, or trabocci, to color the textures and details of Naccarelli’s first restaurant. The end product is elegant and yet comfortable and exciting at the same time.

Trabocco signage reminscent of the wooden sticks of the seaside trabocci

Bar area. Wine wall beyond defines private dining room.

Dining area with fireplace. Sparkling crystal netting reminiscent of fishing nets.

An Italian fishing machine, or trabocco. Photo courtesy trabocco.com

buried in taxes

in art + architecture + design, food + drink, my sf, wanderings

I’m up to my eyeballs in taxes today, so am just posting a few links that I’ve enjoyed from around the web. Hope you do too!

Miss Ko

photo courtesy restaurantandbardesign.com

Check out the latest from Philippe Starck. Miss Ko (the restaurant) was branded by GBH and designed by Philippe Starck and lies smack dab in the middle of Paris (49/51 avenue George V – 75008 Paris). It is one out of the park crazy design that features Miss Ko in all her yakuza glory and is infused with symbolism that should keep you on your smartphone for hours trying to figure out what it all means.

Homemade Ricotta

Allison Eats is a beautifully crafted website. Lovely graphics. And some pretty amazing recipes as well. I was just at a talk last week (thanks to my friend Brooke over at Too Many Apples) featuring the good people from Cowgirl Creamery and Strauss milk, two of my local favorites. I love cheese more than anything, and that’s what they talked about for an hour. So Allison’s recipe for Ricotta hits me right where it counts. I’ll be trying this once I clear all the papers away…

Humphry Slocombe’s new location

photo courtesy insidescoopsf.sfgate.com

A special note to my good friend Errol, Humphry Slocombe is now open in the SF ferry building. I’ll be checking this out in the next few days!

believe it or not I have two complaints about Coi

in art + architecture + design, food + drink, my sf

photo courtesy sf.eater.com/maren caruso

If you’ve been reading Parti* Notes (my newsletter and blog) for any length of time you know that I’m a bit of a Daniel Patterson groupie. I’ve eaten at his restaurants, bought his cookbook, follow him around when he speaks, and scavenge the restaurant rags for any item pertaining to the esteemed DP. Steve and I had the awesome good fortune (and I seriously mean fortune) to spend some well earned dinero at Coi in December. So when I saw that Coi had received a facelift last month I suggested that we might, just maybe, have another go? Please? Steve just laughed. But the seed is planted.

Eater SF visited the newly updated space and provided some nice photos. In December there was only one thing, well maybe two, that I found less than absolute perfection. Of course the food was awesome. But I’m a bit of a lighting nut when it comes to restaurants. And the lighting at Coi was not great. The tables were not lit properly to really show the beauty of the food. DP prides himself on appealing to all of his guests’ senses, and in most cases he is spot on, but not with the lighting. Pun intended. And apparently this is one of the things that he fixed with this update.

The other very minor complaint that I had on my visit was the restroom. While it was most assuredly eye catching (round mosaic tiles everywhere, cloth towels for hand drying, gray rocks in the sink to catch the water), the tile work, while interesting, was not well executed. In addition to lighting in restaurants, I’m also a freak about bathrooms. I would never complain about this bathroom at all except that it was at Coi where most everything is perfect and it was just slightly less than so. And apparently during this reno it was taken down to the studs and redone.

So the seed is planted and I’m very much hoping that my hubby will surprise me with another visit so I can check out what’s new in person. In the meantime, let me know if you get a chance to visit and tell me what you think.